A dash of cultural offerings

Saint Patrick’s Day is also the occasion for a cultural week centred on but not limited to an Irish film festival at the Gaumont Cinema (Avenida Rivadavia 1635 at a more than reasonable admission fee of three pesos). This festival will run until March 22 but the programme does not end there — concerts by the brilliant Irish pianist Mícéal O’Rourke on March 25 and 26 at the Usina del Arte will be the grand finale.The film festival was actually inaugurated last night with an invitation-only screening of the new film Eliza Lynch, Queen of Paraguay (as she unofficially was during the 1865-70 War of the Triple Alliance), accompanied by a reception for the Irish community here. Today’s film at 8pm will be Jimmy’s Hall (the most recent product of Ken Loach’s obsession with Irish history). Tomorrow there will be a double feature of more light-hearted musical fare — Sing Street at 5pm and Once at 8pm — but the main event will start earlier in the day. As from 2pm the “Buenos Aires celebra Irlanda” street festival will be unfolding in Plaza San Martín — a show of Irish music and dancing together with a dramatic re-enactment of the life of Admiral Guillermo Brown on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of his death.Sunday’s feature will be the 1970 classic Ryan’s Daughter (the only film in the festival not made during the last decade), followed by a documentary each night Monday through Wednesday — Further Beyond (about Ambrose O’Higgins, father of the Chilean independence hero), One Million Dubliners (about Glasnevin Cemetery) and 1916: The Irish Rebellion (narrated by Liam Neeson and already shown on Argentine television last year for the centenary of the Easter Rising). All four films will shown at 8pm except One Million Dubliners, which is scheduled for 7pm — the earlier screening is because it will be followed by a round table bringing together its director Aoife Kelleher, Victor Laplace, Oscar Barney Finn and Alan Gilsenan to discuss Argentine and Irish cinema. — MS